Sunday, July 26, 2015

Jewish Scholar Fleeing ‘Nazi-Like Atmosphere’ of Putin's Russia

Paul
Goble

Staunton, July 26 – Ilya Frank, a
Jewish linguist whose approach has defined how Russians study foreign languages
for more than a decade, has decided he and his family must leave Moscow for
Israel because of what he describes as “a Nazi-like atmosphere” there, one he
quickly identified because of his familiarity with German writings and films
from the 1930s.

In an interview posted online
yesterday with Dmitry Volchek of Radio Liberty, Frank, 52, says he decided to
leave “in the first instance” for political reasons because he did “not want to
life in a country where 90 percent of the population is infected with the virus
of self-love and hatred to others” (svoboda.org/content/article/27150010.html).

“I am leaving because of the
Nazi-like atmosphere which has emerged in Russia and in which it is very
unpleasant to live,” Frank says.He
doesn’t have a television and works at home but when he does go out, he sees “the
slogans, hears the conversations, and sees what books are being offered at
major bookstores.”

Because he is “by education a German
instructor,” he continues, he has “read many Germany books about the 1930s in
Germany, watched documentaries, and listened to Goebbels in the original” and
thus can “see parallels and this is very unpleasant,” especially because his
six-year-old daughter will be entering school next year and would be exposed to
all that.

Frank rejects the argument of
Vladislav Inozemtsev that Russia today is more like Mussolini’s Italy than
Hitler’s Germany and that of Maksim Frank-Kamenetsky that there is no
anti-Semitism in Russia.While Russia
now may resemble fascist Italy, he says, it also has “undoubted parallels” with
Nazi Germany, including the language of its leaders.

And while there is less
state-sponsored anti-Semitism in Putin’s Russia than in Hitler’s Germany, there
is ever more exploitation of and even promotion of anti-Semitic themes by those
close to the regime such as Archpriest Dmitry Smirnov who invariably stresses
the Jewishness of what he sees as Russia’s opponents.That sends a message to those ready to hear
it.

Frank says that he did not feel
himself “alien” in Russia until the “Crimea is Ours” campaign began. “90
percent of the population supports this fascist policy.”But now he does, and because his desperately
ill mother has now died, something that had made his departure impossible, he
and his family are now leaving.

According to the linguist, there are
three possible courses of action: to struggle with the regime, to leave, or to
sit quietly and hope for change.He says
he has chosen the second because he does not see “any sense in struggle with a
regime when almost the entire population of the country supports it.”

Frank agrees that he cannot bear “the
new language” which has appeared in Russia over the last 18 months.He adds that he believes that “people
educated in any society sensed this when the Stalin era arrived. For them it
was unbearable because they saw this stwupidity which was expressed in
language, in conversations and in slogans.”